28th November - Reverend Jo Jones

Advent Sunday 28^thNovember 2010 Sermon 10am Mass at St Mary’s, Maldon.

May God, who is the source of all wisdom, open our hearts and minds to the truth of his love for us, made known in Jesus who is the living Word. Amen.

Firstly – thanks for the warm welcome – it’s a pleasure to be here worshipping with you. I was ordained deacon in July and during these past five months I’ve done lots of things for the first time, preaching here is now on the list! Another first for me has been joining the Christian meditation group which meets here on a Tuesday; for some time now I’ve been drawn to the idea of silence as a way of prayer, but it’s not been easy to put into practice. The group has been good because it’s stopped me from getting discouraged by my tendency to become a bit drowsy, drifting into a dreamy sleep. Of course, sometimes that sleep is a gift but generally the idea of Christian meditation is to enter into a time of silence and stillness in which we areawake and alert to God’s presence in us and with us!

I think Advent is a time when we are especially called to keep awake and alert to God’s presence as we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth. What struck me in today’s readings was just how well Jesus and Paul understand our human tendency to doze off spiritually, tonot do today what can be left till tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow! Paul’s letters contain numerous pleas for Christians to persevere and keep alert! God’s kingdom can break in at any time – any given moment we can become acutely aware of the presence of God. And when we are aware of his presence with us in Jesus, then maybe we can’t put off any longer a closer examination of the way we’re living –how are we actually living out our faith in the light of Jesus’ presence with us now, and in preparation for his coming in glory when Christ will be all in all. That’s what the prophet Isaiah yearns for and points us towards – the time when the sorrows and pains and divisions of our human existence will be finally and fully transformed by the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

Of course, Advent is not a penitential season – we are after all waiting in joyful hope for the coming of our Lord, we’re mirroring the adventure with God that Mary embarked on as she waited for Jesus to grow in her and change her life forever– just as Mary made preparations for the arrival of her baby and the challenges of motherhood, we must prepare for Christ’s coming by having an honest look at the reality of our lives, the joys and blessings and those shadows and painful dimensions, all of that in the light of God’s truth. The light of Christ that shines in the darkness is needed to illuminate the depths of own being, and that of the universal church. Paul urges the church - put on the armour of light, stop the quarrelling and jealousy. Isaiah also pleads with Israel - walk in the light of the Lord - long for an end to destructive conflict; the church needs to hear that message as much as the nations of the world do; perhaps our new synod will be lead us all in keeping alert to the signs of the kingdom breaking into the Church of England; we might as brothers and sisters in Christ notice again what the time is and work together to see Isaiah’s vision of peace and justice more clearly realised.

The traditional themes for Advent are called the four last things – death, judgement, heaven and hell. The judgement that Matthew’s Jesus warns of is stark – though today’s images are relatively mild compared to some of fire and brimstone that you’ll find in the passages before and after it. Of course Christmas itself can involve just the sort of oblivious eating and drinking which Jesus pictures, but his dramatic and poetic warnings are meant to stir us from spiritual lethargy into an alert awareness of his love, and to let that love change us, slowly…painfully… joyfully…immediately.

How far this love shapes our lives matters here and now as Paul says and it can be agonizing to acknowledge those darker aspects of ourselves we’d rather gloss over or perhaps aren’t even conscious of – in the silence and stillness of prayer who we are is lit up by the eternal light which is God who enlightens even our deepest darkness, and we encounter the true reality of our being. And the light which reveals our weaknesses is also the light of hope because of the coming of Christ as a human being – by experiencing what it means to be human, sharing our vulnerability Jesus has taken up our human nature and redeemed it from all that divides or distorts it. If we are in Christ we have endless good news, we have infinite hope that the mercy and love we find at the heart of God, is the mercy and love which will fill us and by his grace, transform us into the fully human beings God calls us to be.

As we begin our preparations to celebrate Jesus’ birth let us also keep in mind his death and resurrection – for it’s in this that we learn what judgement looks like. In his death Jesus bears in himself all the darkness and pain of this world, the worst that we human beings are capable of, but in Jesus’ resurrection God declareshis forgiveness and mercy to be the way through which he saves us and all creation. The people of Israel looked to the East, to Jerusalem for the hope of rescue and the vision of everlasting peace; we can travel with joyful hope and expectation through the darkness and light of Advent because we know Jesus is journeying with us towards the even brighter light of Easter morning which revealed once for all the power of his love to heal and save our suffering world.